Archive for the ‘Islamofascists’ category

(The notion that Islamist countries and Islamist NGOs, such as the Islamic State, do not adhere to western norms of due process must be shocking to anyone who has been living in a cave with no contact with the rest of the world for many years. But what about those in Europe and elsewhere who insist on unlimited immigration from Islamist countries to honor their gods named “Diversity” and “Multiculturalism”? — DM)

People have, it seems, often been arrested or detained on the basis of a rumor; then convicted without trial, counsel or often even the chance to mount a defense.

As Amnesty International points out, “In many countries where people were sentenced to death or executed, the proceedings did not meet international fair trial standards. In some cases, this included the extraction of ‘confessions’ through torture or other ill-treatment”.

The laws under which these people are sentenced to death are often not only vague and open to interpretation. Charges that warrant the death penalty, for instance, include being “corrupt on earth”, “enemies of Allah on Earth”, or alleged “crimes against chastity”. What exactly does “corrupt on earth” or “enemies of Allah on Earth” mean?

Just how strict and brutal it is to enforce Islamic law, sharia, has now been revealed by Amnesty International.

Amnesty’s study, which details the number of reported executions around the world, clearly maps out the most at-risk populations. Lands ruled predominantly by sharia are apparently the most vulnerable to multitudes of executions without fair trials. At the top of the list, with the most executions, are those nations that enforce Islamic sharia law. Despite many human rights violations, these nations, apparently undeterred, continue to execute their citizens.

Sharia makes those in authority infallible and untouchable. Therefore, whatever the government or those in power deem to be “just” can be carried out without question or consequence. Under sharia law and the Islamic penal code, executions can be carried out in sickening forms. Those convicted may be beheaded, hanged, stoned, or shot to death.

As disturbing as the numbers in the report may be, they do not represent the reality that the citizens in these nations across the world face every day. There is, evidently, a connection between radical Islamist governments and extremist groups. The report does not include the gruesome executions that are carried out on a regular basis by extremist Islamist groups and non-state fundamentalists, such as members of the Islamic State (ISIS) and their affiliated groups.

These executions include, as we have seen, slitting throats, burning alive, drowning alive and crucifixion.

If these acts were included in the Amnesty International report, the total number of executions committed under the authority of Islamist law would be far higher. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, for example, pointed out that the Islamic State executed 33 people in the first week of April alone.

The report also did not include the number of Westerners being shot, executed and terrorized by Islamist groups. Many of these, such as ISIS, Asaib Ahl al-Haq (AAH), Kata’ib Hezbollah (KH), the Badr Organization, Or Kata’ib al-Imam Ali (the Imam Ali Battalions), are funded and trained by Islamist governments and oil-rich, unaccountable leaders.

Mass executions are evidently also being carried out by both extremist Islamist governments and Islamist groups. A culture of executions, often extra-judicial, as in Pakistan, seems to run rampant within the borders of these countries. Without any consequences for this horrifying disregard for human life, the numbers will only increase.

In Pakistan, Asia Bibi (pictured with two of her five children), a Christian, sits on death row for “blasphemy.” Asia’s “crime” was to use the same water glass as her Muslim co-workers. “You defiled our water,” the Muslim women told her.

Both Islamist governments and Islamist groups justify their brutal acts by referring to the “religious” Islamist legitimacy of their murders. Members of fundamentalist Islamist governments, to legitimize these types of atrocities, also exploit the right of “sovereignty”: they point out that they belong independent state with a fully operating and “legal” judiciary.

In the Amnesty International report, the Iran ranked number one, per capita, in executing people. It also accounted for 66% of all officially recorded executions in the region. Again, this amount only represents those executions that were officially registered.

It is also critical to point out that the statistics Amnesty International provides were given by the very governments that carried out the executions. This method means that those in power were the ones to calculate and decide what number should officially represent their country. The unofficial number is thought to be even higher. There is nothing to stop governments from simply keeping the true number to themselves.

Executions carried out under the strict governmental laws of sharia and Islamist judicial systems can have even more grotesque characteristics. The high number of executions included children, some convicted before the age of 18. Death sentences may frequently have lacked due process and what many would consider acceptable standards of proof. People have, it seems, often been arrested or detained on the basis of a rumor; then convicted without trial, counsel or often even the chance to mount a defense. As Amnesty International points out, “In many countries where people were sentenced to death or executed, the proceedings did not meet international fair trial standards. In some cases, this included the extraction of ‘confessions’ through torture or other ill-treatment”.

Prisoners’ vulnerabilities also had no bearing on their executions. Even those seriously ill were executed. Mass executions or stoning could be ordered and then carried out within a very short time, sometimes within days, giving those convicted no time to mount any form of appeal.

The laws under which these people are sentenced to death are often not only vague and open to interpretation. Charges that warrant the death penalty, for instance, include being “corrupt on earth”, “enemies of Allah on Earth”, or alleged “crimes against chastity”. What exactly does “corrupt on earth” or “enemies of Allah on Earth” mean? There are no guidelines to establish guilt or innocence. Those in power are therefore able to decide who has violated what laws on what can only be a capricious basis. Islamist sheikhs, imams, or judges can subjectively interpret charges any way they like. A charge of being “corrupt on earth” can apply to having fun at a party or writing poetry that government decides is critical of it. A charge of being “corrupt on earth” can apply to someone who is homosexual, someone who is claimed to have committed adultery, or who has simply declined to accepted an unwanted advance. It can mean anyone who has done anything that the ruling leaders dislike.

These Islamist laws, moreover, also serve as a perfect tool for exploitation. A woman finding herself accused of breaking a law may be assured that if she agrees to sleep with a judge, for instance, he will interpret the law in a lenient way and protect her from the death penalty. After a woman submits to this, she can be executed nevertheless. Sometimes girls are forced into sighah — the Shiite Islamist law of temporary marriage — with a cleric, or a governmental official; after “consummating” it, they can also be put to death.

What does a charge such as “crimes against chastity” mean under sharia? This accusation can apply to a girl who has been raped. Instead of the law providing protection for the victim and consequences for the rapist, the victim is accused of the crime of “adultery”, convicted without a fair trial, and swiftly executed.

When Islamist laws enter a land, it seems the number of stonings, beheadings, and executions goes up.

Leaders of these nations can use this flexibility to terrorize and control entire societies, expand their power, export their ideology, and ensure that there is no opportunity to resist. More disturbing is that those numbers are just a portion of the truth.

(I agree with nearly everything Hirsi Ali says, except for her last paragraph:

We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.

As written, what she proposes comes dangerously close to, and could easily be construed to be the same as, Canada’s new “anti-Islamophobia” law. We should not be required to be tolerant of Islamism or any other ideology; we should be free to criticize it for being what it is. Those who try to defend it should be as well, disgusting though they may be.

The First Amendment recognizes our right to freedom of speech because it helps good to prevail over evil; the possibility that it may occasionally permit the reverse is not a valid argument against freedom of speech. It may be an argument — which I reject — that we are no longer capable of living in a free society. Criminalization of free speech because it may be considered “intolerant” of any religious or political view can be the end of free speech and produce a society congruent with that which the Islamists desire. — DM)

It cannot be said often enough that the United States is not at war with Islam or with Muslims. It is, however, bound to resist the political aspirations of Medina Muslims where those pose a direct threat to our civil and political liberties. It is also bound to ensure that Mecca Muslims and reforming Muslims enjoy the same protections as members of other religious communities who accept the fundamental principles of a free society. That includes protection from the tactics of intimidation that are so central to the ideology and practice of political Islam.

******************************

It is refreshing and heartening that President Trump acknowledges the need for an ideological campaign against “radical Islam.” This deserves to be called a paradigm shift.

President Bush often referred to a “war on terror,” but terror is a tactic that can be used for a variety of ideological objectives. President Obama stated that he was opposed to “violent extremism” and even organized an international summit around this subject. Yet at times he made it seem as if he worried more about “Islamophobia” than about radical Islam.

In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in 2012, Obama declared: “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.” In what follows, however, I shall refer to “political Islam” rather than radical Islam.

Political Islam is not just a religion as most Western citizens recognize the term “religion,” a faith; it is also a political ideology, a legal order, and in many ways also a military doctrine associated with the campaigns of the Prophet Muhammad. Political Islam rejects any kind of distinction between religion and politics, mosque and state. Political Islam even rejects the modern state in favor of a caliphate. My central argument is that political Islam implies a constitutional order fundamentally incompatible with the U.S. Constitution and with the “constitution of liberty” that is the foundation of the American way of life.

Yes, Islamists Have Everything to Do with Islam

There is no point in denying that political Islam as an ideology has its foundation in Islamic doctrine. However, “Islam,” “Islamism,” and “Muslims” are distinct concepts. Not all Muslims are Islamists, let alone violent, but all Islamists—including those who use violence—are Muslims. I believe the religion of Islam itself is indeed capable of reformation, if only to distinguish it more clearly from the political ideology of Islamism. But that task of reform can only be carried out by Muslims.

Insisting that radical Islamists have “nothing to do with Islam” has led U.S. policy makers to commit numerous strategic errors since 9/11. One is to distinguish between a “tiny” group of extremists and an “overwhelming” majority of “moderate” Muslims. I prefer to differentiate among Medina Muslims, who embrace the militant political ideology adopted by Muhammad in Medina; Mecca Muslims, who prefer the religion originally promoted by Muhammad in Mecca; and reformers, who are open to some kind of Muslim Reformation.

These distinctions have their origins in history. The formative period of Islam can be divided roughly into two phases: the spiritual phase, associated with Mecca, and the political phase that followed Muhammad’s move to Medina. There is a substantial difference between Qur’anic verses revealed in Mecca (largely spiritual in nature) and Qur’anic verses revealed in Medina (more political and even militaristic). There is also a difference in the behavior of the Prophet Muhammad: in Mecca, he was a spiritual preacher, but in Medina he became a political and military figure.

It cannot be said often enough that the United States is not at war with Islam or with Muslims. It is, however, bound to resist the political aspirations of Medina Muslims where those pose a direct threat to our civil and political liberties. It is also bound to ensure that Mecca Muslims and reforming Muslims enjoy the same protections as members of other religious communities who accept the fundamental principles of a free society. That includes protection from the tactics of intimidation that are so central to the ideology and practice of political Islam.

Background on Today’s State of Affairs

The conflict between the United States and political Islam in modern times dates back to at least 1979, when the U.S. embassy in Tehran was seized by Islamic revolutionaries and 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days. In the decades that followed, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania reminded Americans of the threat posed by political Islam.

But it was not until the 9/11 attacks that political Islam as an ideology attracted sustained public attention. The September 11, 2001, attacks were inspired by a political ideology that has its foundation in Islam, specifically its formative period in Medina.

Since 9/11, at least $1.7 trillion has been spent on combat and reconstruction costs in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The total budgetary cost of the wars and homeland security from 2001 through 2016 is more than $3.6 trillion. Yet in spite of the sacrifices of more than 5,000 armed service personnel who have lost their lives since 9/11 and the tens of thousands of American soldiers who have been wounded, today political Islam is on the rise around the world.

Violence is the most obvious—but not the only—manifestation of this trend. Jihadist groups have proliferated all over the Middle East and North Africa, especially where states are weak and civil wars rage (Iraq, Libya, Somalia, and Syria, not forgetting northern Nigeria). Islam-inspired terrorists also have a global reach. France is in a permanent state of emergency, while the United States has been profoundly shaken by terror attacks in Boston (the Marathon bombers); Fort Hood, Texas; San Bernardino, California; Orlando, Florida; and Ohio State University, to name but a few.

Of the last 16 years, the worst year for terrorism was 2014, with 93 countries experiencing attacks and 32,765 people killed. The second worst was 2015, with 29,376 deaths. Last year, four radical Islamic groups were responsible for 74 percent of all deaths from terrorism: the Islamic State (also known as ISIS), Boko Haram, the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. Although the Muslim world itself bears the heaviest burden of jihadist violence, the West is increasingly under attack.

How large is the jihadist movement in the world? In Pakistan alone, where the population is almost entirely Muslim, 13 percent of Muslims surveyed—more than 20 million people—said that bombings and other forms of violence against civilian targets are often or sometimes justified in order to defend Islam from its enemies.

Disturbingly, the number of Western-born Muslim jihadists is sharply increasing. The United Nations estimated in November 2014 that some 15,000 foreign fighters from at least 80 nations have traveled to Syria to join the radical jihadists. Roughly a quarter of them come from Western Europe.

Yet the advance of political Islam manifests itself not only in acts of violence. Even as billions are spent on military intervention and drone strikes, the ideological infrastructure of political Islam in the United States continues to grow because officials are concerned only with criminal conspiracies to commit acts of violence, not with the ideology that inspires such acts.

According to one estimate, 10−15 percent of the world’s Muslims are Islamists. Out of well more than 1.6 billion, or 23 percent of the globe’s population, that implies more than 160 million individuals. Based on survey data on attitudes toward sharia in Muslim countries, total support for Islamist activities in the world is likely significantly higher than that estimate.

What Scholarship on Political Islam Says

There are two sets of academic literature aimed at helping policy makers grapple with the threat of radical Islam. In the first set, Islamic religious ideas form a marginal factor at best. Authors such as John Esposito, Marc Sageman, Hatem Bazian, and Karen Armstrong argue that a combination of variables such as poverty and corrupt political governance lies at the root of Islamic violence. They urge the U.S. government and its allies to tackle these “root causes.”

For these authors, devoting attention to religious motives is at best irrelevant, and at worst a harmful distraction. They are not concerned about political Islam as an ideology, only about individual acts of violence committed in its name.

A second set of scholars—which is growing in importance—sees a radical ideology derived from Islamic theology, principles, and concepts as the driving force of our current predicament. Scholars such as Michael Cook, Daniel Pipes, Jeffrey Bale, and David Cook, and authors such as Paul Berman and Graeme Wood, acknowledge that factors such as poverty and bad governance are relevant, but argue that U.S. policy makers should take seriously the religious ideology that underlies Islamist violence.

The failed polices since 9/11 (and even before) in the struggle against radical Islam were built on false premises derived from the first set of literature, which absolves Islam wholly of the atrocities that it inspires. As the failure of American strategy since 2001 has become increasingly clear, however, the view has gained ground that the ideology underlying Islamist violence must be tackled if our efforts are to be successful.

This view is not only held by a few Western scholars. All over the world, there are now Muslims who are engaged in a long-overdue process of reassessing Islamic thought, scripture, and laws with a view to reforming them. These Muslim reformers can be found in positions of leadership in some governments, in universities, in the press, and elsewhere. They are our natural allies. An important part of our future policies in the war on Islamic extremism should be to encourage and empower them.

It’s Time to Understand Dawa

From 9/11 until now, the dominant Western response to political Islam has been to focus only on “terror” and “violent extremism.” This approach has failed. In focusing only on acts of violence, we have ignored the ideology that justifies, promotes, celebrates, and encourages those acts. By not fighting a war of ideas against political Islam (or “Islamism”) as an ideology and against those who spread that ideology, we have made a grave error.

If Islamism is the ideology, then dawa encompasses all the methods by which it is spread. The term “dawa” refers to activities carried out by Islamists to win adherents and enlist them in a campaign to impose sharia law on all societies. Dawa is not the Islamic equivalent of religious proselytizing, although it is often disguised as such by blending humanitarian activities with subversive political activities.

Dawa as practiced by Islamists employs a wide range of mechanisms to advance the goal of imposing Islamic law (sharia) on society. This includes proselytization, but extends beyond that. In Western countries, dawa aims both to convert non-Muslims to political Islam and to bring about more extreme views among existing Muslims. The ultimate goal of dawa is to destroy the political institutions of a free society and replace them with strict sharia. Islamists rely on both violent and nonviolent means to achieve their objectives.

Dawa is to the Islamists of today what the “long march through the institutions” was to twentieth-century Marxists. It is subversion from within, the use of religious freedom in order to undermine that very freedom. After Islamists gain power, dawa is to them what Gleichschaltung (synchronization) of all aspects of German state, civil, and social institutions was to the National Socialists.

There are of course differences. The biggest difference is that dawa is rooted in the Islamic practice of attempting to convert non-Muslims to accept the message of Islam. As it is an ostensibly religious missionary activity, proponents of dawa enjoy a much greater protection by the law in free societies than Marxists or fascists did in the past.

Worse, Islamist groups have enjoyed not just protection but at times official sponsorship from government agencies duped into regarding them as representatives of “moderate Muslims” simply because they do not engage in violence. Islamist groups that have been treated in this way include:

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC)
The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA)
The International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT)
The Islamic Society of Boston

For organizations engaging in dawa, the main elements of the strategy are:

to have well-organized Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood claim to speak on behalf of all Muslims, while marginalizing Muslim reformers and dissidents.

to take ownership of immigration trends to encourage the “Islamization” of Western societies by invoking hijra, the emigration of the Prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Medina.

to reduce women to the status of reproductive machines for the purpose of demographic transformation.

to take advantage of the focus on “inclusion” by progressive political parties in democratic societies, then to force these parties to accept Islamist demands in the name of peaceful coexistence.

to take advantage of self-consciously progressive movements, effectively co-opting them.

to increase Islamists’ hold over the educational system, including some charter schools, “faith” schools, and home schooling.

Typically, Islamists study target societies to identify points of vulnerability. In the United States, Islamists focus on vulnerable African-American men within prison populations, as well as Hispanic and Native American communities. Recent targets of Islamist infiltration include the Women’s March and Black Lives Matter.

Agents of dawa also systematically lobby private-sector organizations, governments, and international bodies:

They seek to pressure governments to accede to Islamist demands on the grounds of freedom of religion or status as a religious minority.

They urge the United Nations and the European Council to combat “Islamophobia” by devising what amounts to censorship guidelines for politicians and journalists and by punishing those who dissent.

They press institutions such as the Associated Press to distort the language they use to suit Islamist objectives.

They wage sustained campaigns to discredit critics of radical Islam.

The Sinews of Dawa

The global infrastructure of dawa is well funded, persistent, and resilient. From 1973 through 2002, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia spent an estimated $87 billion to promote dawa efforts abroad. Josh Martin estimates that, since the early 1970s, Middle Eastern charities have distributed $110 billion, $40 billion of which found its way to sub-Saharan Africa and contributed heavily to Islamist ideological indoctrination there.

Nongovernmental organizations in Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia continue to distribute large sums overseas to finance ideological indoctrination and activities. Powerful foundations such as the Qatar Foundation continue to grant financial support and legitimacy to radical Islamic ideology around the world.

Many Islamic charitable foundations use zakat (mandatory charity) funds to mix humanitarian outreach with ideological indoctrination, laying the ground for future intolerance, misogyny, and jihad, even if no violence is used in the short term. When informal funding mechanisms are included, the zakat funds available could reach “hundreds of billions of dollars” worldwide each year.

The Key Problem Is Using Our Freedoms to End Them

Let it be said explicitly: The Islamists’ program is fundamentally incompatible with the U.S. Constitution, religious tolerance, the equality of men and women, the tolerance of different sexual orientations, and other fundamental human rights.

The biggest challenge the United States faces in combating political Islam, however, is the extent to which agents of dawa can exploit the constitutional and legal protections that guarantee American citizens freedom of religion and freedom of speech—freedoms that would of course be swept away if the Islamists achieved their goals.

In 2010, one senior American intelligence analyst summed up our predicament: “In the US there are First Amendment issues we’re cognizant of. It’s not a crime to radicalize, only when it turns to violence . . . America is thus vulnerable to a threat that is not only diversifying, but arguably intensifying.”

To give just one example: A cleric in Maryland, Imam Suleiman Bengharsa, has openly endorsed the Islamic State, posted gruesome videos, and praised terrorist attacks overseas. As of February 2017, however, he remains a free man and U.S. authorities insist nothing can be done against him because he has not yet plotted to commit a specific act of violence. One expert has said that Imam Bengharsa “can take his supporters right up to the line. It’s like making a cake and not putting in the final ingredient. It’s winks and nods all the way.” This is what we are up against.

The global constitution of political Islam is formidable. The Muslim Brotherhood, with its numerous American affiliates, is an important component, but not the only one. Even if one were able to eliminate the Brotherhood overnight, the ideological infrastructure of dawa would remain powerful. The network of radical Islamist preachers, “charities,” and organizations that perpetuate political Islam is already well established inside and outside the United States.

To resist the insidious advance of political Islam, we need to develop a strategy to counter not only those who use violence to advance their politico-religious objectives—the jihadists—but also the great and complex ideological infrastructure known as dawa, just as we countered both the Red Army and the ideology of communism in the Cold War. Focusing only on “terror” as a tactic is insufficient. We ignore at our peril the ideological infrastructure that supports political Islam in both its violent and its nonviolent forms.

It is not just that jihad is an extension of dawa; according to some observers, it is dawa by other means. Put differently, nonviolent and violent Islamists differ only on tactics; they share the same goal, which is to establish an unfree society ruled by strict sharia law. Institutionally, nonviolent Islamists have benefited from terror attacks committed by jihadists because such attacks make nonviolent Islamists appear moderate in the eyes of Western governments, even when their goals and values are not. This is known as the “positive radical flank effect. Ian Johnson, a writer for the Wall Street Journal, observed:

Al Qaeda was the best thing to happen to these [Islamist] groups. Nowadays, our bar is so low that if groups aren’t Al Qaeda, we’re happy. If they’re not overtly supporting terrorism, we think they’re okay. We don’t stop to think where the terrorism comes from, where the fish swim.

Dawa must therefore be countered as much as jihad.

Yet, as things stand, dawa cannot be countered. Its agents hide behind constitutional protections they would dismantle unhesitatingly were they in power. In 2017, Congress must therefore give the president the tools he needs to dismantle the infrastructure of dawa in the United States and to counter the spread of political Islam at home and abroad.

While recognizing that our freedoms are sacrosanct, we must also remember the wise words of Karl Popper, who memorably identified what he called “the paradox of tolerance,” namely that “unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance.”

If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise.

But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols.

We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.

“He said that sections of the Western world must get out of double standards about Islam and the Muslims. On the one hand, they have laws against any kind of distortion or disrespect towards any religion…”

They do?

“The meeting decided that after response is received from the governments of Islamic countries, the matter would be taken up at the level of United Nations besides looking into legal options available to follow up the matter legally in the courts of the respective countries from where such content was being generated.”

This is just cleanup at this point. Social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter are already moving energetically against speech that violate Sharia blasphemy laws. The establishment media in the West is cowed and compromised, eager to appease and not interested in defending the freedom of speech. Their efforts at the UN will meet with little, if any, pushback.

ISLAMABAD: A meeting of ambassadors of the Islamic countries with Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan in the chair has decided to raise the issue of blasphemous content on social media in the United Nations.

The meeting was convened by the interior minister on one-point agenda i.e. to discuss the blasphemous content on the social media and how to effectively raise voice of the entire Muslim world against the madness unleashed against Islam and holy personalities in the name of freedom of expression.

There was unanimity among the participants that the entire Muslim Ummah is united to protect the sanctity and dignity of the religion and Holy Prophet Mohammed (PBUH).

It was decided that a comprehensive strategy paper encompassing all legal and technical aspects would be circulated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs among the ambassadors of the Muslim countries which they would be sharing with their governments to evolve the future plan of action.

FORMAL REFERENCE

It was also decided that a formal reference would be sent to Secretary General of the Arab League (AL) and Secretary General of the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC), raising the issue of blasphemous content on social media and how such a tendency had been hurting the sentiments of the Muslims across the world.

The meeting decided that after response is received from the governments of Islamic countries, the matter would be taken up at the level of United Nations besides looking into legal options available to follow up the matter legally in the courts of the respective countries from where such content was being generated.

The interior minister pointed out that distortion of religious beliefs and sacrilege of holy personalities of any religion is intolerable. He said that no law permits showing disrespect or distortion of any religion.

BIGGEST VICTIMS

He said it was unfortunate that the Muslims, being the biggest victims of terrorism, were being portrayed as the perpetrators. He said the Islamic Ummah must strive together to impress upon the international community to shed off Islamophobia. The minister said that distortion of any religion is also another form of terrorism that the international community must acknowledge.

He said that sections of the Western world must get out of double standards about Islam and the Muslims. On the one hand, they have laws against any kind of distortion or disrespect towards any religion and, on the other hand, the most revered personalities of Islam are being ridiculed….

Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center are part of an alliance of haters who seek to intimidate anyone daring to question the Islamofascists’ supremacist ideology and their strategies to implement it. Their tactics of choice include race-baiting and a campaign of economic coercion akin to the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. For example, JVP and the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center have ganged up with other like-minded so-called “inter-faith leaders and organizations” to harass a non-profit organization, the Clarion Project, they have falsely accused of being “an anti-Muslim hate group.” JVP boasted how it was successful in pressuring a real estate firm, Tishman Speyer, into throwing out the Clarion Project from offices they were renting in Tishman Speyer’s Washington D.C. building.

“The turning point in the campaign came when JVP DC-Metro partnered with leaders from the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church Virginia,” JVP declared. “The Islamic and Jewish organizations collaborated to challenge a major Tishman Speyer development project that was before the Fairfax County Planning Commission.”

The Fairfax County Planning Commission was considering the development project this month at what should have been a routine meeting. Instead, JVP and Dar-Al-Hijrah attempted to turn it into a referendum on the Clarion Project. Alison Glick, coordinator of JVP DC-Metro, said at the hearing, “If Tishman Speyer is going to keep doing business with Clarion, then Fairfax County should stop doing business with Tishman Speyer. Let Tishman Speyer know that hate groups are not welcome in Fairfax County.”

Colin Christopher, Deputy Director for Government Affairs at Dar-Al-Hijrah, complained to the Fairfax commissioners how the Clarion Project allegedly promoted hatred and bigotry. “We like most others see this development as a good thing,” said Colin Christopher. “But we were deeply troubled when learning about the ongoing business relationship that Tishman Speyer have with one of the most well financed hate groups in the United States, the Clarion Project.”

The Clarion Project is, in reality, in the truth-telling business. It has put into practice what it states as its mission: “exposing the dangers of Islamist extremism while providing a platform for the voices of moderation and promoting grassroots activism.” It exposes the Islamofascists’ true agenda with their own words, while giving more moderate Muslims who are disaffected by Islamofascism the chance to express their feelings in their own words. That is not hate. It is education.

For example, Ryan Mauro, Clarion Project’s national security analyst, wrote a highly informative article based on his interview with a Pakistani Muslim activist named Anila Ali. Ms. Ali, now living in the United States, recounted what it was like trying to live the life of a moderate Muslim while being subjected to threats and hate messages from Islamist groups like the Taliban. She condemned radical Islamic groups such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). She said, “I don’t subscribe to the views of any Muslim organizations or individuals who teach extremism or hate for my country, its institutions, and for the men and women in uniform that keep me and my family safe. I don’t subscribe to any Muslim organization that teaches that women and minorities don’t have equal rights in Islam. And I don’t subscribe to any organization that teaches hate against any other human being.”

In providing truly moderate Muslims in the United States a public platform to denounce the Islamists’ messages of hate and the opportunity to provide their alternative positive vision, the Clarion Project is setting an example for people, in its words, “to step up for justice, tolerance and moderation.”

JVP claims to be “inspired by Jewish tradition to work together for peace, social justice, and human rights.” In practice, they are nothing of the kind. For example, while all too eager to condemn “Israeli war-crimes,” they have little to say regarding Hamas’s use of human shields and its firing of rockets aimed at Israeli civilian population centers.

Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center claims to “[P]romote better relations and understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims.” Just like their partner, JVP, they are nothing of the kind. According to the Department of Treasury’s Enforcement Communications System (TECS) records, as quoted by the Investigated Project on Terrorism, Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center is “a mosque operating as a front for Hamas operatives in U.S.,” and “is associated with Islamic extremists.”

The Clarion Project has written about the Islamic extremist organizations and individuals linked to the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center. It has provided both direct quotes from affiliated extremists and references to U.S. government findings to back up its claims. Pointing out incontrovertible facts is not hate speech. Again, it is education in the truth.

The Clarion Project has also written about JVP’s involvement in pro-Islamist, anti-Israel causes. For example JVP supported the cause of a former member of the terrorist group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, whom had reportedly moved to the United States under false pretenses. Rasmieh Yousef Odeh was indicted for omitting from her immigration papers the material fact that she had been arrested, convicted and imprisoned in Israel for her involvement in a terrorist attack that killed two Israeli students. JVP joined with the Chicago chapter of CAIR, American Muslims for Palestine and various pro-Palestinian “interfaith” groups in seeking an exoneration for this terrorist who falsified her background in order to reside in this country. The Clarion Project linked to JVP’s letter in which JVP said it “stands in solidarity with Rasmea Yousef Odeh” and opposes what it called “unwarranted and draconian enforcement of our immigration laws.”

Neither Jewish Voice for Peace nor the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center have chosen to address the Clarion Project’s fact-based reports head on. Instead, they have dressed up the Left’s time-honored tactic of race baiting to accuse the Clarion Project of hate-filled Islamophobia. Their “source” for this calumny is the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). SPLC’s October 2016 publication, “A Journalist’s Manual: Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists,” purported to profile 15 “anti-Muslim extremists.” The Southern Poverty Law Center took a swipe at the Clarion Project as part of its highly distorted “anti-Muslim extremist profile” of the Clarion Project’s national security analyst, Ryan Mauro.

The SPLC has been found to have inflated its numbers on so-called “hate groups” in general, and has a distinctly anti-conservative bias. Any journalist who relies on SPLC’s shoddy work does so at his or her peril. It spliced together out-of-context quotes to portray its targets in the worst possible light. And it grossly distorted its targets’ full records of accomplishments. In Ryan Mauro’s case, for example, SPLC left out of its “profile” his extensive efforts to reach out to more moderate Muslims such as Anila Ali, whom he interviewed for the article mentioned above. SPLC included Maajid Nawaz on its list of supposed anti-Muslim extremists. Mr. Nawaz is a practicing Muslim, whom has spoken out against both anti-Muslim bigotry and Islamic extremism. SPLC included ex-Muslim critic of radical Islam Ayaan Hirsi Ali, whose life has been threatened for speaking out about her own first-hand experiences with Islamist hatemongers. And SPLC’s hit list included experts on jihad such as Robert Spencer, whose thoroughly researched books and articles are nuanced in defining the problems that radical Islam poses for Western societies. In all these cases, SPLC is conflating legitimate moral and intellectual criticism of Islamist doctrine with hate speech. As Mr. Nawaz said in his rebuttal to the accusations leveled at him, members of “the regressive-left” have set themselves up as “self-appointed inquisitors.” And as Mr. Spencer said, the point of SPLC’s hit list was “to demonize and silence everyone who dares say something about Islam that is not warmly positive.”

The leftwing SPLC has given the Jewish Voice for Peace and Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center the propaganda ammunition they need to try and intimidate the critics of Islamist organizations and individuals into submission. They must not succeed. Bullying businesses into cutting their ties with patriotic American groups such as the Clarion Project, whom are unfairly smeared as hate groups, is an Islamofascist tactic that must be firmly resisted in defense of free speech.